promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.It's not a bad idea, and certainly far better than the convoluted income tax system we have now.
Progressives will of course view it as "regressive" because it's flat in that it doesn't tax the rich more than the poor.
And the time for Republicans to be serious about passing such legislation was 4-8 years ago when they were in the majority.
To advocate it now is pointless grandstanding: they don't have the votes nor the veto pen. Were they to regain such power their will to consider this sort of bill would surely evaporate, or at least be defused, because moderates would be unconvinced of this bill's wisdom and progressives raise hell. Moreover the pro-IRS, pro-H&R Block, pro-tax-lawyers lobby carries a lot of weight.
A sounder approach to gaining support for eliminating (most) of the IRS is to do so by drastically simplifying the tax code and getting rid of virtually all deductions and loopholes and adjusting bracket rates accordingly. This could be done in conjunction with welfare reform, e.g. the negative income tax which 79% of economists prefer.
Good stuff -- that list of things economists agree on was extremely helpful.
ReplyDeleteBut that's just the wrong thing to do! You're still giving money for nothing - it's still welfare.
ReplyDeleteFairTax simply taxes those who spend the most. If I go spend $50 grand this month, I'm paying a higher amount of tax than the guy who spent $2 grand. A minimum "poverty" level of spending is set, and spending up to and including that level is not taxed.
People who save - are rewarded. By keeping more of their operational profits, businesses can hire more people. By keeping more of their paychecks, people as consumers increase confidence in the system.
I'm not 100% convinced that the FairTax Bill is the best there is. I AM convinced that it's better than giving underachievers a reason to remain underachievers.
There will always be a demand for some welfare. This system replaces the current, broken systems of welfare and refundable tax credits and does away with the minimum wage to boot.
ReplyDeleteYou should read more about it, because it's really genius. 79% of economists don't support it because they're in love with welfare: they do so because it's the best kind of welfare in that it's elastic and doesn't distort the market like our current welfare and minimum wage provisions.